Collaboration in computer science: a network science approach. Part II

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the evolution of collaboration networks in computer science since 1960, examining bibliometric and network properties to understand how scholarly collaboration has developed over time.

Contribution

It introduces a network science approach to study the temporal evolution of collaboration and affiliation networks in computer science research.

Findings

Growth in collaboration network connectivity over time

Increase in average number of collaborators per scholar

Changes in network clustering and assortativity patterns

Abstract

We represent collaboration of authors in computer science papers in terms of both affiliation and collaboration networks and observe how these networks evolved over time since 1960. We investigate the temporal evolution of bibliometric properties, like size of the discipline, productivity of scholars, and collaboration level in papers, as well as of large-scale network properties, like reachability and average separation distance among scientists, distribution of the number of scholar collaborators, network clustering and network assortativity by number of collaborators.